The Next MTG Setting Book?

I had an interesting conversation with one of my friends, who manages the FLGS where I like to get my D&D paraphernalia. I was there to pick up my copy of Mythic Odysseys of Theros (with the awesome "paint on the side of a van" limited edition cover) and we were talking about various D&D settings. He was saying that he really loved Eberron, to which I remarked that I think Eberron is the closest to my own homebrew setting of all the established ones.

But we were also talking about the fact that this was now the second Magic setting to be introduced to D&D. And he said something a bit surprising, which was that he felt that Theros was a better choice than Ravnica for the first crossover - that they should have done them in the other order.

Now, marketing is certainly a factor here: Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica did come out just as Magic was going into its Ravnican year, with Guilds of Ravnica, Ravnica Allegiance, and War of the Spark, so it made sense that, with all the Ravnica imagery abound, they should push this setting. Likewise, while it wasn't the most recent set to come out, we did get Theros Beyond Death earlier this year, so Theros was very much in the consciousness of MTG players.

But his argument was that Ravnica is a very weird setting - with its ecumenopolis nature and the odd philosophies of its guilds (in the campaign I'm running, both I and the player playing this particular PC cannot understand why everyone follows the Rakdos Bard's suggestions, which often involve brutally murdering people - and this is a party with two Boros Legionnaires and a member of the Selesnya Conclave!) while Theros has an extremely low barrier to entry - it's Greek myth (with the serial numbers filed off), which, perhaps up there with Arthurian Legend, is basically the bedrock upon which the western fantasy genre is built.

But it was for that very reason that I was kind of surprised when they picked Theros as their next crossover setting. Surely you can already pretty much put together Greek-myth-themed adventures with stuff you find in the Monster Manual, right?

Now, given that it's out, I'll certainly say that there are some very cool ideas in there, particularly the mechanical concepts related to each specific god. Ravnica is a very popular setting for Magic players, but on the flipside, it's a really odd one for people who are coming to it from the D&D side of things.

I think both setting suffer a bit from a lack of history. There's only so much that one can squeeze into sourcebooks for these settings, but I also think that, as places invented primarily for a card game, rather than to be a breathing world for RP adventures, the main focus of the creative team was in matching card mechanics to world concepts, and creating visual languages so that card art can give you an immersive experience of the world. But neither translates that well to D&D, which thrives a bit more on specific detail and history.

Granted, I think of that as largely the DM's job - to come up with stuff like that - but it does mark how the Magic worlds - Theros included - are more high-concept than lived in and realistic.

What, then, of these worlds, would make sense as another setting - assuming WotC wants to continue releasing setting books like this (naturally I'd hope they also do D&D-original settings, but we did get both Eberron and Wildemount between these releases, so I'm not terribly worried.)

So lets assume WotC wants to release another MTG setting book at some point, maybe a year or two from now. What are good options?

To narrow the list (given that Magic has a crap ton of planes) I'm going to break out the old Rabiah Scale. This is a scale used by Magic R&D to determine which planes they're likely to revisit in the future, with 1 representing a place like Ravnica that they've done multiple times and expect to keep coming back to, and 10 representing a place like Rabiah, which was a ret-conned setting created to justify Magic's very first expansion, Arabian Nights, and is only canonical purely to make sure the whole game takes place in the same multiverse.

So, narrowed that way, I'm going to look at settings that are 1, 2, 3, and 4 under the current ratings, which are all "most likely" going to be returned to.

Dominaria:

Ok, this is the obvious one. Remember that thing I said about Magic planes not having enough history or backstory? Well that does not apply to Dominaria, which was the original setting and has a history dating back several thousand years, with specific continents, nations, historical periods, and even at least 3 apocalyptic-scale catastrophes that it has recovered from. The only reason I'd ding this is that it serves as a bit of a fantasy kitchen sink, as with only a couple exceptions, it was the setting for the first ten years of the game's existence, and thus might feel a little too much like, say, the Forgotten Realms. But frankly, I think it's different enough, its history is distinct enough, that it'd actually make a pretty freaking awesome setting. Just one book might not be enough to cover it all, but this is also one of the three "1s" on the Rabiah scale, and is pretty great.

Innistrad:

Innistrad is Magic's gothic horror plane, and is another one of the "1s" on the Rabiah scale (the last is Ravnica, which, you know, already done there!) Innistrad is a very popular setting, but I'd say it has two major strikes against it: the first is that it's a setting where there are basically only humans and monsters. No elves, no goblins, no vedalken: Innistrad is a place where humanity specifically struggles versus vampires, werewolves, ghosts, and zombies. The other issue is that D&D already has a dedicated Gothic Horror setting in Ravenloft, and I think the D&D purists would riot if we were to get an Innistrad setting book before we got a Ravenloft one.

Zendikar:

The sole "2" on the scale, Zendikar is certainly one of the most popular Magic planes (and is getting its third visit in the next Magic set). In fact, Zendikar was partially conceived as an "adventure plane," with mechanics like creatures that leveled up like a D&D character. It's filled with ancient ruins riddled with traps, and dark secrets to discover within. The world is in a constant state of flux, the landscape shifting with something called the Roil, but I believe this does not prevent there from being some sense of settled civilization. Between its myriad dungeon possibilities and its layered and complex (and eldritch) history, I think this is another strong contender.

Eldraine:

A fairly recent introduction, Eldraine combines Arthurian chivalry with Grimm's fairytales, perhaps striking the most traditional style of fantasy of any setting. The main conflict here is between the Realm and the Wilds, with honorable knights (there's literally a piece of equipment called Shining Armor) embarking on quests into the Wilds, and the various dangers in the Wilds threatening the people. Like Innistrad, this is a setting that's very human-centric, though this one does have elves, dwarves, goblins, and merfolk, which opens things up a bit. While the Realm is very primarily human, there is at least one major elf character in the Realm, and dwarves are also a major population within it, meaning this is actually not too hard to implement.

Ikoria:

The most recently introduced setting, Ikoria presents a couple challenges. Like Innistrad (moreso than Eldraine,) this is a world that is really just humans and monsters. Granted, the monsters vary in intelligence and sapience, and there is potential for conflict between the world's hunters and the "bonders" who form a deep, possibly psychic connection with the creatures. This is a world with very little in the way of permanent settlements - there's basically three cities that are all designed to withstand monster attacks, and anyone living outside of them is a real risk-taker. I think the lack of playable races might be a dealbreaker, but it would be great to get stat blocks for this world's many Kaiju-like monsters.

Tarkir:

Tarkir is... a bit complicated. See, when players were introduced to Tarkir, it was home to five broad groups commanded by their Khans, who, in the ancient past, destroyed the tyrannical dragons that dominated the world. But then, a planeswalker character went back and altered time - allowing the Big Good, Ugin the Spirit Dragon, to survive when previously he had perished, but also causing the dragons of Tarkir to come back, dominating the humanoid races. There's plenty of race diversity here, which works great, but there is a big question of which timeline you'd be setting things in - or, what you'd do if I were writing a book set here - making the two timelines a major part of the setting.

So, leaving Ravnica and Theros out, that's the "most likely to return" list of planes. Having written out descriptions of them, I'm finding that Dominaria actually seems like the most obvious choice, as even if it's less high-concept and narrowly focused, it provides a lot of great lore to play through. Zendikar is probably the next on the list, followed by Eldraine.